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Mechanical engineering students place in ASME contest

Mechanical engineering students place in ASME contest

Two Penn State mechanical engineering students recently placed in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Mechanism Design Competition, held in San Diego, Calif., from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2.

Cassie Niebel, a senior mechanical engineering major, was awarded first place in the mechanisms-undergraduate division for her work on designing an endoscopic biopsy needle; Andrew Rau, a graduate student of Mary Frecker, professor of mechanical engineering, was awarded third place in the mechanisms-graduate division for his work on designing an endoscopic forceps/tissue spreader.

"The competition was part of the 2009 ASME International Design Engineering Technical Conferences, where Andrew and Cassie presented their work in both presentations and a poster/hardware demo session," Frecker said.

Submissions to the contest were judged on creativity, practicality, integrity of analysis and design methodology, quality of a fabricated prototype and a final report.